novelraw Chapter 37 : Massacre
Chapter 37 : Massacre
Chapter 37: Massacre
Black smoke spread throughout the cave.
The fallen bandits rose one by one.
“Cough! Cough!”
Blood-tinged coughs burst from Robin’s mouth.
Only then did he understand what had happened.
‘He shouldn’t have breathed in that black smoke.’
The smoke spewing from the bottle Ralph had taken out boosted the bandits’ strength.
Meanwhile, it shackled Robin’s body.
Because of the unidentified smoke, he couldn’t dodge Ralph’s club.
Was this the end?
Seeing Ralph casually nudge his head with his foot made his anger flare.
‘I was far too weak…….’
Robin had grown while following the mercenary band.
His even sparring with Paul had given him confidence.
He had been quietly proud whenever someone commented on his talent.
He had never been arrogant, but he had believed he could at least protect himself.
It had been hubris.
“Don’t worry, kid. I won’t kill you. Pretty boys like you are in high demand, heh heh.”
The bandits approached with ropes in hand.
Robin’s sword slipped from his grasp.
A bandit seized his arms roughly to tie them, sending pain surging through him.
It hurt, but he didn’t scream.
He felt pathetic that he couldn’t do anything even in this situation.
“Listen up. Since there are injured among us, we’ll proceed with the ritual.”
“Woooooo!”
The bandits roared at Ralph’s declaration.
There were plenty who had been wounded in the fight with Calimacos.
Some were so badly injured that they would die if left alone.
Yet even those men screamed with faces filled with anticipation rather than fear.
“Offer the sacrifice!”
“Bless us! Death to the unbelievers!”
Watching the bandits cheer like fanatics, Robin wanted to cover his ears.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to witness their deranged bloodlust.
Just as self-loathing was about to bloom toward his own helplessness—
A hand rose from the ground.
“Wh-what is that?”
“It’s a human hand! No way!”
Robin opened his eyes.
A second hand gripped the earth, and a man covered in dust hauled himself out.
It was Calimacos.
Blood streamed from many parts of his limbs, yet he moved without issue.
“Haa…….”
“Captain!”
Hope spread across Robin’s face.
Calimacos was alive.
The despair that had flooded his whole body receded in an instant.
He called out to Calimacos out of relief, but the man didn’t respond.
It didn’t matter. He was alive. If it was the captain, he would handle this.
Robin believed Calimacos would break through the situation.
“How did you escape the trap?”
“Curious? Want me to tell you?”
Ralph gave a nod of affirmation.
Calimacos walked toward him empty-handed.
“You lunatic! What do you think you’re doing with that body!”
The bandits rushed toward Calimacos.
Robin felt a stab of fear.
No matter how veteran a mercenary he was, fighting armed men bare-handed wasn’t easy.
“Captain, it’s dangerous…….”
Hooook.
Robin couldn’t finish speaking.
He wasn’t the only one.
Among all the bandits filling the cave, not one made a sound.
“…….”
More precisely, none of them could open their mouths.
An intangible force pressed down on everyone in the space as if stamping them into the ground.
Some bandits trembled, then froze in place as they wet themselves.
Others shook their arms as though shocked by lightning and dropped their swords.
A bandit closest to Calimacos had tears streaming down his face.
There was only one word dominating their minds.
Death.
‘What… this is killing intent……?’
Robin was no exception.
He could feel it on his skin. A suffocating murderous will filled the air.
Calimacos picked up a sword lying on the ground and walked forward with steady steps.
Puuuk.
A bandit died, stabbed through before he could resist.
Even at the moment of death, he couldn’t make a sound.
“I almost died because of you.”
Puk.
The bandit next to him was also stabbed.
He collapsed with his pants soaked.
“You bastards.”
Puk. Puk.
A one-sided slaughter began.
Calimacos strolled as if on a walk, yet no one stood in his way.
“Kh!”
Ralph pulled out the black bottle and released smoke, but it was useless.
If anything, Calimacos’s killing intent only grew thicker.
The bandits found it difficult even to breathe.
Before Calimacos could swing his sword, bandits fainted from suffocation one after another.
“This one spat at me while we were fighting.”
Calimacos flicked his arm lightly, separating the bandit’s head from his body.
Robin’s eyes wavered at what Calimacos did next.
Calimacos opened the severed head’s mouth and cut out the tongue.
Then he stabbed each eye one after the other.
Puk-jjik. Puk-j jik.
The exploded eyeballs slid down the blade, but he didn’t stop.
Calimacos, expressionless as he shredded the face, was terror incarnate.
For the first time in his life, Robin felt overwhelming fear.
This wasn’t the Calimacos he knew.
The man massacring others like squashing insects was a killer swallowed by murderous madness.
Calimacos’s eyes gleamed with blood-red killing intent.
‘This is berserk.’
He had to stop Calimacos.
Not for his own sake.
If this continued, no one knew where Calimacos’s berserk rage would turn.
He struggled desperately to loosen his frozen body.
He tried moving the tips of his fingers first.
He wanted to flee here immediately, but he steeled his mind.
Flinch.
His index finger moved, however slightly.
Starting from his index finger, he moved the others too.
In the slowed flow of time, he regained control of his hand.
Once his hand moved, the rest of his body gradually regained freedom as well.
“Captain, please… stop now…….”
He barely forced his mouth open to call out to Calimacos, but his voice was too faint.
That Robin even managed to open his mouth against that killing intent was a miracle.
Calimacos’s massacre continued.
“Should I snap your neck. Burst your heart. Cut off your wrists and squeeze the juice out.”
Pushooook.
Another bandit’s body collapsed.
From the belly split with a crimson line, organs spilled out.
Robin watched the entire process.
Nausea surged within him.
‘How do you resist killing intent… What do you do when someone is swallowed by murderous will?’
Even accelerated thinking had its limits.
Robin’s focus wasn’t limitless, and his condition was at its worst.
He desperately wrung out every bit of wisdom he had, but no proper method came to mind.
“Mm~ you need a little haircut. Stay still, I’ll trim you nicely.”
What kind of man was Calimacos?
Captain of Stonegoth’s guard.
Leader of the mercenary band that bore his own name.
A master of swordsmanship.
A leader trusted by all despite his lightheartedness.
A veteran mercenary accustomed to travel.
A man with many secrets.
Someone who looked frightening but was considerate.
An adult who hadn’t forgotten justice.
‘To me, the captain was my benefactor.’
Countless words came to mind, but they could all be summed up in one.
Robin’s benefactor.
On the mountains behind Stonegoth, when he nearly died to the Gnoll Leader—had Calimacos not come, Robin would have been dead.
On the journey to Baron Tefir’s Regiville, Calimacos always tended to Robin’s safety first.
And Robin knew it wasn’t merely because of money.
Traveling together, he glimpsed a mysterious mission within Calimacos.
Had it not been for him, Robin’s life would have ended long ago.
‘Now it’s my turn to save the captain.’
Robin grabbed one of the swords scattered nearby.
Using it like a cane, he trembled as he forced himself to stand.
Calimacos stuck three or four swords into a bandit’s head as though arranging flowers.
The suffocating pressure remained.
Everywhere around him was a sea of blood.
The number of remaining bandits was now less than ten.
“Captain!”
His voice came out slightly louder than before.
In the cave where only Calimacos’s muttering and tearing sounds echoed, Robin’s voice was enough to reach him.
“Snap out of it!”
Eyes drenched in killing intent turned toward Robin.
There was no sign of the Calimacos who usually treated Robin kindly.
Calimacos pushed aside the corpse he had skewered.
Crack.
With the sound of bones breaking, the corpse toppled over.
Calimacos began walking toward Robin.
“At this rate, it’s dangerous!”
Slice.
A bandit standing in his path lost his head as it rolled away.
“If your berserk state gets any worse, even I don’t know what will happen! Please, stop!”
Puk.
He thrust into the solar plexus of a fainted bandit and swirled the blade.
The bandit trembled even with a hole in his chest, then went limp.
Robin shouted desperately, but Calimacos did not stop.
No bandits remained standing.
Fluid dripped from the blood-soaked sword tip.
Tears welled in Robin’s eyes.
“Hhrrk… come back…….”
Calimacos stood before Robin.
His short life flashed before his eyes like a lantern-lit panorama.
As hope began to dim, an unwanted memory flickered through his mind.
—Unless they’re your mortal enemy, it’s the best way to throw someone off.
Ah. Why had he remembered only now?
Holding back the urge to vomit, Robin screamed.
“Hhng… Aing… huk… kyuuing kyuuing! Aing kkyuing… kkyuing!”
“…….”
A crack formed in Calimacos’s blank expression.
Was this really working?
Robin was desperate.
He pressed his left fist to his cheek and shook it as he shouted,
“Aing! Kkyuing! Kkyuing! Aiiing! Kkyuing! Kkyooiing!”
It was mad, but it was working.
Robin hurled himself into Calimacos’s arms.
He worried his head might be cut off, but he gambled everything.
He bumped his head repeatedly against Calimacos’s stomach, rasping out more cries.
After a minute that felt like an hour, a hand landed atop Robin’s head.
“Enough. I’m not crazy.”
“Hhheuuuk… Captain!”
Tears and snot smeared everywhere, Robin buried his face in Calimacos’s clothes.
Calimacos set his sword down and stroked Robin’s head.
Covered in blood and bodily fluids, the two stood motionless for a long while.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
The bandit leader Ralph moved hurriedly.
He went deep into the cave, and only upon reaching the very end did he catch his breath.
No light reached this place, yet a torch hanging on the wall illuminated the inside clearly.
At the brightest point stood a large altar.
In the center of the altar lay a pile of bloodless bodies.
After pushing them all aside, Ralph placed new bodies atop it.
Strictly speaking, they weren’t bodies.
They were close to death, but still alive.
“Boss……”
“Forgive me. Your sacrifice will not be in vain.”
Ralph’s eyes burned with a blazing desire for power.
“Ancient Dark Lord! We worship you and offer these living beings. We desire your power.”
Ralph stretched out his hand, pointing at the sacrificial victims on the altar.
“This life, this blood—we offer it to you. For your glory, for your power. We praise your name highly and will borrow your strength to crush our enemies.”
Ralph took a deep breath.
“Now, accept their sacrifice and grant us your power. With your might, we shall rule the world.”
He chanted the incantation in one breath and fixed his gaze on the altar.
Nothing changed.
As he began to panic, wondering if he had spoken it wrong, a voice filled the cave.
Insufficient.
Ralph recoiled in terror.
He had offered many sacrifices before, but this was his first time hearing a direct response.
“What? Are you saying the sacrifice is insufficient!”
He questioned the altar, but there was no reply.
Swallowing his anxiety, Ralph looked around.
Bringing even two of his subordinates through that mad mercenary’s killing intent had nearly killed him.
To get more sacrifices, he would have to return to that lunatic—and that was a death sentence.
‘Wait. Why respond now of all times?’
Ralph tried to grasp the intention of the Demon Tribe entity.
Insufficient meant that the current sacrifices weren’t enough to overcome the situation.
That meant it was watching this place.
“The corpses and the humans in the cavern—offer them all as sacrifice!”
Clinging to a sliver of possibility, he tried speaking to it.
He had dozens of subordinates. There was no way that wasn’t enough.
Until now, he had offered sacrifices only at the altar, but who knew—
Perhaps the entire cave was made by the Demon Tribe entity.
Fwoooosh!
“Kyaaaagh!”
Flames shot up from the altar.
The subordinates Ralph had brought were engulfed in flames.
‘It worked!’
This meant the sacrifice had been accepted.
A surge of unprecedented power flooded Ralph.
Yes—this feeling. This omnipotence.
A strength he had never experienced poured into him.
“Wait for me, you crazy mercenary. I’ll hack your limbs into pieces.”
Ralph’s eerie laughter filled the space around the altar.